Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me.

This summer has been so different from what I expected it to be, as God usually has it. But it's been amazing to see God work. It's been a learning experience for sure, but not in the ways that I anticipated it being a learning experience. I've learned a lot from my internship at the Nashville Scene but the thing I've learned the most is that my passion for journalism is this: the art of the story. I love knowing stories I would have never known, and telling them to people who would have never heard them otherwise. I think there's a definite necessity for the main stream media, I don't think it's all evil like a lot of the Christian world likes to say. I think it's important to be informed. (Although yes of course there are always misleading messages) But I think the necessity for news in a kingdom sense is so much more important. The spreading of the "Good News"--the only news that matters. I've learned that God has given me a gift and a passion for that, and that I'm called to use it with purpose.

So I've been praying all summer about what that should look like. How do I take my "worldly" journalistic skills and use them for the advancement of God's kingdom? Friends, it has been so crazy to see God answer that prayer a little bit at a time. Through friends with similar passions, a dream has been established and a joining together in prayer to make that dream a reality has begun. I have a friend in North Carolina who told me 2 weeks ago that she has this passion for telling stories through photography, and she wants to use that to love on people and spread the gospel. I have another friend in Nashville who told me today about this vision he has of a ministry that he wants to start to basically raise awareness and draw attention to different missions all over the world by using people like me, and my photographer friend, and other "communications like" people. And so we've started to just pray about it... we don't know where it's going, but we know that there is an anointing on our hearts and our passions, and that God will use them and bless them so that we can bless his people. It's just been cool to see God open these doors and join together a group of people under this one common passion. We're all living in different places right now but we're all dreaming the same dream and praying the same prayer in hopes that we will one day be a part of God's mission together.

Tonight I was reading in Song of Songs... you may be thinking, "What the what?" But in this letter, this intimate love letter in which Christ is the bridegroom and we are the bride, he spoke such sweet words to me tonight. In Song of Songs 2:10-13, it says this:

10 My lover spoke and said to me,

"Arise, my darling,

my beautiful one, and come with me.

11 See! The winter is past;

the rains are over and gone.

12 Flowers appear on the earth;

the season of singing has come,

the cooing of doves

is heard in our land.

13 The fig tree forms its early fruit;

the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.

Arise, come, my darling;

my beautiful one, come with me."

And as he so intimately asks me to follow him, I'm answering. As this fig tree of his calling on my life forms its early fruit, I'm following. I'm praying that he continues to reveal his plan and open doors. I'm praying blessings over the hearts and mission of this group of people that I believe has been joined together by a divine intervention. I'm asking God to bless this mission so that we can bless others and spread His good news.

And friends, my prayer for you is this: that whatever it is God is calling you to do, whatever it is that he whispers in your ear and strikes that fire in your heart and says, "beautiful one, my darling, come with me" ... I hope you'll answer. I hope you'll follow and allow yourself to be blessed... because I believe God gives us our passions and our gifts so that we can bless others and magnify his kingdom.